Lookie, lookie... Something new popped up on Youtube for us to enjoy while we wait for the release on DVD/BD later this month. It is a montage of what has happened so far with the remix (35 voices) of the main theme. At the end is a retro to the '70's era.

Interesting. As we get closer to the release date for Chapter 5 we are reminded that Chapter 6 is right around the corner as it comes out in theaters 18 days after the Blu-ray for Chapter 5 does. With its own BD coming out six weeks after that followed by a rapid one month for Chapter 7 then its BD by the end of September.

All the while the episodes come out on TV weekly in Japan.

Yamato 2199 might not be able to beat Evangelon 3.33 or Gundam Unicorn these days, but it hold high respectible sales verses other modern anime.

I'm not entirely certain where the carrier battle is taking place, but that is definately not Balun.

I won't have my copy for another day or so, but I've seen it without subtitles so I can give a view of Chapter 5.

Very spoiler heavy by the way.

Yamato is running low on food and moral is low. Dommel sets up a trap to make sure Yamato can't escape. A large battle happens, but somehow Yamato survives because Dommel is recalled.

Dessler is informed that Celestria's agent found an Iscandarian on Yamato and that there may be a plot against him.

The Gamilas Imperial Guard decide to take car of a dissodent population of the empire by way of genocide.

On Yamato, Yuria is still possesed by the occupant of the "coffin" in the autopilot room. She wonders around wondering about the wave motion gun and then has a talk with Sanada about it. She's worried about something. No one seems to notice that she's talking slightly off and has her hair down.

The ship's food stores are low after the Submarine attack in episode 13. Niimi suggests they divert to Beemera (a Earth like planet that is slightly off their route to Iscandar) to resupply.

Meanwhile, Dommel has been using scout ships to keep a watch and slowly direct Yamato into a trap. A Pulsar that will block their ability to Warp away.

But on Gamilas, something is happening. Something that leads to Dommel's house.

On Yamato, Niimi and Ito are discussing what to do. They need a way to get Izumo Plan working again (they don't believe in Yamato Plan for various reasons) Beemera is a possible place to relocate the human race and save our species. Niimi talks to Shima about helping them...in a sexy way.

Yamato gets ready for their next warp when the two Gamilas ships that have been following them attack again. Instead of fighting Sanada has the ship warp...but they end up at the Pulsar....with Dommel's Fleet there to greet them.

Yamato arrives at Beemera. The planet is Earth-like so Niimi and Ito (with Shima) stage a mutiny while Kodai is off the ship.

Yamato is still heavily damaged from the battle with Dommel. Admiral Okita passes out again from the strain and is ordered into bed to rest. Sanada is in command. They arrive at Beemera with Niimi handing Shima a note. It is time.

Kodai, Yuria, Analyser, Harata, go down to the planet. Analyser gets a big walking mech to help them thought the dense forest. At first Yuria seems normal, if sleepy, but after they get panetside, she loses her hair things and starts talking weird (and acting weird). They get chased by a local animal...Yuria being carried by Analyser....she's laughing the entire time. It eventually sees something and wonder off. They find what seems to be another Iscandarian ship.

On Yamato, Niimi has a talk with Sanada to attempt to get him to abandon the Yamato Plan in favor of resettling humanity to Beemera. He refuses. Ito comes in and Sanada asks him to put her in the brig. At which point Ito aims his gun at Sanada. Around the ship, security guards start rounding up key personel. Taking the Pilots captive (save Yamamato who I think was in the bathroom), the captain hostage, and commondeer the bridge with Shiima's help. Shima declare the Yamato Plan is cancelled. Yabu and the younger engineering staff hold their seniors in the Engine Room.

Ito declares Yuki to be an alien, using an alean recording device she had earlier as proof. It has a recorded message from Starsha to her little sister on it.

Meanwhile on the planet, Kodai's group discover the Bee People are dead for something like 400 years. Inside the spaceship is another Wave Motion Core. This one with information about some sort of Warp Gate System. They decide to take this back to Yamato, but Yamato doesn't respond to their signals.

On Yamato, Hoshina (the young security guard) comes to get the Doctor. They head up to check on the Captain. In the brig, Yuki, Nambu, Ota, and Aihara are confined under guard, while Yamamoto arrived from the vent system to free them. They head to the hanger bay to contact Kodai. making contact they open the hanger for him.

On the Bridge, Ito is hatching a plan that sounds like he's going to make it seem like Sanada and the Captain died so their won't be questions when they get home. Orders Shima to head out. Shima wants to wait for Kodai, but follows orders. Until the hanger doors start to open. At which point he follows procedures to let them on. Ito orders him to fly while Niimi tries to countermand, which gets Ito angry and raising his voice. Shima stops the ship. to draws his gun, and sets it to kill Shima. Niimi knocks him away, by manges to injure herself in the proses. She confronts Ito, who turns to shoot her. Shima draws, but it doesn't seem fast enough.

Until Ito's gun is shot from is hand. By Hoshino. The Captai them comes down to the bridge and yell at them all. Kodai's party lands and he is enthusiastically hugged by Yuki. He's sort of stunned by this since he doesn't know what is going on.

Hoshino is a plant by Commander Todo into the Izumo Plan people...just in case. Shima was brought into the plan by Hoshino to see what they did. Kodai delivers the route to a Gate in the Beemera system that will get them to Balun.

Yamato arrives at a Warp gate, but they need to power it up before they can use it. Kodai, Sanada, and Yuki head over to the station to get the power sytems going. Meanwhile Dommel is charged for an assassinating.

Yamato arrives at a Waro Gate just outside the Beemera system. It is powered down, but still functional. A tam must go there to get it working again. However the crew now thinks Yuki is an alien and this is bothering her a lot since she can't remember more than a year ago, so she can't prove if they are wrong or not. (She don't know if she is an aliean or not)

On Gamilas, Dommel is charged with assassinating Dessler. his wife seems to have been involved in some sort of movement against the Empire. Dommel is charged and I think sentanced to be executed. Helm is pleased. With Dommel and Dessler out of the way, he can be the leader of the Gamilas. He takes off for a Navy Review at Balun in his red Fleet Battleship. Meanwhile, Melda Dietz (the gamilas pilot from episode 10 and 11) is witnessing the brutality of the Imperial Guard on prisoners...including Dommel's wife.

Back with Yamato. On the Gate's station, Kodai and Sanada find an abandon's Gamilas station and a fighter. They and Yuki wonder the station, avoiding robots. Sanada tells the story of what happened to Yuki and Yurisha. Yuki is a human. Yurisha is in a coma in the pod in the autopilots room. Why? Because they don't know where Iscandar is. She didn't have time to tell them before the terrorist attack that put her in a coma. So they've been using her brain as the autopilot.

Niimi is in the brig. Her arm injured in the struggle with Ito. She has flashbacks on her time in school with Sanada and Kodai (the older one). Sanada also tells Kodai about his older brother and that he didn't tell him about the mission when they left for Pluto. Sanada at this time has locked himself in a room with the main power core. He has to turn it on from the inside, which the high radiatio would likely kill him. Kodai pleds with him while Yuki tries to unlock the door, but Sanada activates the Warp Gate.

Yuk gets the door open after the radiation spike goes down. Sanada is nowhere to be seen. Kodai has a moment of sadnes until Sanada comes out of the water surrounding the platform. It shielded the radiation. They head back to Yamato. Sanada and Kodia have bonding moment while Yuki goes to see Yurisha in the pod for herself. In the pod we see a woman that looks a lot like Yuki, but in Iscandarian clothing. Yuki talks to the pod for a second until Yuria corrects her. She is Yurisha of Iscandar...or more accurately, Yuria is possessed by the spirit of Yurisha of Iscandar.

Shinohara flys a recon mission in a captured plane to find out what is at Balun. Yamato must pass Balun to get closer to Iscandar. But there is a fleet of 10,000 Gamilas ships there.

Yamato is ready to go through the now active Warp Gate, but they have no idea how it workd or what Balun is like on the other side. So Shinohara (the long haired pilot) goes in their captured Gamilas fighter he calls "Sword 3". This seems to have been the name of Yamamoto's brother's plane. Shinohara and his fighter head off for the Gate.

At Balun, Helm arrives with several battleships and battlecruiser. He is greeted by Goer in his camoflauged battleship. There is a massive fleet gathering at Balun for Naval Review.

Shinohara travels the storms of the Gate, seeing some Gamilas ships, but they ignore him as his autopilto takes him to the Balun Gate. Once on the other side (a rough ride in a fighter) he finds some 10,000 Gamilas ships in orbit.

Helm and Goer head around the planet as the Naval Review continues with formations of fighters flying around with the Gamilas fleets. Shinohara goes with a formation as he scans for the next Gate. Find it and the Gate power system in Balun, he is detected and begins a long race back to the Gate to Beemera. Yamato is powering up because he is running out of time. Shinohara's fighter is chased by several torpedo boats and his hit just before hitting the Gate.

His fighter was recovered by Yamato, with a lot of engine damage. Shinohara has passed out due to lack of oxygen, but he is alright. But now Yamato finds that the gate to the Lareg Magallenic Cloud is on the other side of Balun, Balun is an artifictial planet with a huge power source for the two gates...and there is a fleet of 10,000 Gamilas warship in orbit. Okita's going to go in anyway.

At the Naval Review, Helm informs the fleet of Dessler's death. he takes command of the Empire declaring it to be for pure blooded Gamilas only (second class citizens need not apply) This seems to get to Geor a little. But the declarations are interrupted by an unschedualed ship coming though one of the Gates. Yamato enters the system at full speed and with guns blazing. Helm order the ship be destroyed, but the formations are so dense they Gamilas are hitting each other. Goer tries to correct this, but Helm countermans him. Eventually some Gamilas shots get through Yamato's shields and she plunges into Baluns caustic atmosphere.

Helm laughs at his, doing what Dommel could not. But he is interrupted, again. This time by the video screen sending to all ships in the fleet. Dessler's alive! It seems he had warning of the plot on his lift and send a double on his personal blue Fleet Battleship to be blown up. Dessler took instead Wulf's dimetional submarine UX-01. Who's going to find you in subspace? Dessler was waiting to see what people did to find the real traitor. And that would be Helm. helm calls for something from the fleet but is instead shot in the back by a very angry Goer. Goer might be an ass and a brown-noser, but he's no traitor.

Then they are interrupted again. Yamato rockets out Balun near that Gamilas base and heads straigh past Goer's ship on its way to the Gate. Yamato turns a 180 degrees and points its bow at Balun as the Gamilas Fleet starts to open fire again. It's Wave Motion Gun time again. The gun fires and misses every ship in the fleet. Goer is not impressed with their shooting until he realizes where they were aiming. The Power Core overloads. Goer orders the fleet to flee. Okita orders the recoil system deactivated and Yamato's Wave Motion Gun rockets them into the waitign Gate, just before it starts to explode. The Power Core blows taking out several Gamilas ships. Goer's red Fleet Battleship and several other ships are seen leaving the area intact.

The lights slowly come on. Yamato's bridge lights up and the armored panels open to reveal the Large Magallenic Cloud. Yamato made it through the Gate and is now much closer to Iscandar. Yuria (Yurisha) says she's home.

That was a lot of typing, and many spoilers. Many many spoilers...and that is without knowing all the details due to not yet having a version with subtitles (soon though).

Well, now... All four eps (15-18) were just one plot twist after another. What will be in store for us when the next 4 eps come out. I really would like to know what is going on in Melda's head now that she has seen the grim truth of what her government is doing. Also, Niimi, it seems, she still has very strong feelings for the elder Kodai. I am guessing that because that they were separated, due to jobs, is the reason for the split. The next set of eps may shed some light on this. I would bet that Yuria/Yurisha will also shed some more light onto what is going on too.

Having seen the episodes now with subtitles (the BD arrived yesterday). I can say that there isn't much to add to the summeries. Their may be some detail things I got better for understanding them, but he general stuff was understood before that.

Pretty expensive right now. You can find them all on eBay (and some on Amazon), but they're averaging between $99 and $120. And they're I think only a couple of episodes per disc. WAY to pricey right now. I'm hoping a full series production set will eventually be released once the show is complete that will be a little more affordable.

Having seen the episodes now with subtitles (the BD arrived yesterday). I can say that there isn't much to add to the summeries. Their may be some detail things I got better for understanding them, but he general stuff was understood before that.

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My Blu-Ray is still "in customs". If past experience is anything to go by, I won't have it until Tues. June 4, 2013. (Must avoid spoilers)

I will say, I didn't quite like how easily one of the plots was solved, but at least the pieces seem to be set for the final push.

I do like how the human side has been handled though. Was the original anime/cartoon as complicated as this one is in terms of the grey zones that the humans operate in? Or was it more simplistic in terms of our heroes being perfect?